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Regulation must come down in telecom: Nokia global CEO

The shift towards 5G has begun, and the US is among the first markets. We have been shipping a lot of 5G gear to the US, including some produced out of India. As it spreads across Japan, Korea, China, Europe and other countries, we think that 5G can drive in $12 trillion worth of economic activity by 2035. It will give rise to the fourth industrial revolution, and lead to a growth in productivity.

| TNN | Updated: Feb 26, 2019, 14:24 IST

Rajeev Suri, Nokia global CEO (File photo)

Rajeev Suri has been the Indian face spearheading the evolution and growth of 5G across the globe. As the boss of the 23-billion-euro telecom equipment and systems major Nokia, Suri — who rose through the ranks to become the global CEO in 2014 after joining as a manager way back in 1995 — feels that 5G will completely revolutionise and transform businesses and consumer interactions, leading to a highly connected, digitised, and efficient eco-system. However, there could be challenges for jobs and data protection in the 5G era and so there will be a need for massive re-skilling and plugging information leakages. On India’s march into 5G, he says the country will join the elite club by late 2021, but adds that “over-regulation” and lower spectrum holdings may make it challenging. Excerpts:

How has been the progress on 5G across the world, and will it spur investments?

The shift towards 5G has begun, and the US is among the first markets. We have been shipping a lot of 5G gear to the US, including some produced out of India. As it spreads across Japan, Korea, China, Europe and other countries, we think that 5G can drive in $12 trillion worth of economic activity by 2035. It will give rise to the fourth industrial revolution, and lead to a growth in productivity.

How revolutionary can 5G be for businesses, consumers and enterprises?

It can be very transformative because 5G will be a general-purpose technology. The digital transformation is not going to be limited to a couple of sectors. For example, with peak speeds of 10 gigabytes per second, you can enjoy near-live broadcasts — with a 360-degree experience — of a cricket match being played in Australia or England sitting at the couch in your living room. This will be through augmented and virtual reality. Such experiences can also be worked out in education. I think the more profound changes will be in industries. Let’s take healthcare as an example where we will have 5G ambulances. When somebody faces an emergency like a heart attack, can you do the tests while he is being transported, and send the data back to the hospital for doctor’s evaluation? You can’t do it with 4G because there’s a lot of data. But it’s possible with 5G. In manufacturing, we will need robots to work alongside humans. These robots will be controlled by the cloud as they move on the assembly line. 5G will also be strong in logistics, and supply chain.

But with so much of efficiencies coming in due to digitisation, will we see human jobs being replaced by technological advancements and robots?

As a society, we will have the issue of repurposing jobs, rescaling, and retraining. There will be changes in occupations, but I don’t necessarily think that jobs will go down as new types of jobs will be created… It’s not a given that automation will necessarily take away jobs. It’s not necessary that when you digitise, and when you automate, you’ll necessarily give up jobs. It is true that jobs will change. That’s a societal challenge that we all have — how do you repurpose jobs, how do you reskill as a society, and how do companies reskill.

What about threats to data security from 5G?

Security becomes ever more important in 5G because this applies to industries and also for critical data such as healthcare, etc. When it comes to privacy, I think GDPR in Europe is a good example which spells out how your data can be used, and makes it a consent-based regime… I think, we should have a set of simple policies and guidelines, and we can start to apply this across nations and states.

Coming to the Indian market, while we are expanding in 4G, there are concerns over 5G investments due to the financial stress in the telecom sector. Do you think spectrum prices need to be reduced in India?

The first thing is that market forces always determine consolidation of industries, and that’s fine. So, this is what is happening in India. The second is I am 100% believer that regulation must be reduced overall, and spectrum fees must be smaller… Whether it is India or elsewhere, I absolutely believe that spectrum should be something that is affordable because you want to have the capacity to invest. Thirdly, regulation must come down in the telecom industry, and I think that overall taxes must come down so that companies can have the ability to invest in the future and build networks. Regarding spectrum holdings, I think a good block of spectrum in 3.5 gigahertz should be somewhere between 80 to 100 megahertz per operator with low prices and longer holding periods.

Lastly, we have seen security issues being raised across the world around Chinese supplier Huawei with whom you compete globally. Do you gain from this?

You know, it’s hot, it’s early. We’re observing this whole thing very closely. We watch these developments very closely and, of course, we want to be there for our customers when they need us. That’s all I’ll say on this.

And for their (Huawei’s) customers as well?

Yeah, of course. But, I also want to focus on our strengths and our strengths are that we focus a lot on security. We have design for security processes built into our equipment. The equipment is designed for security. Nokia is regarded as one of the most ethical companies on the planet.

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